(A/N)- Done for Bad Things Happen Bingo, prompt was "Used As Bait". Mostly inspired by a suggestion on Discord, actually, which went something along the lines of "Ezra's hiding with something important to the Empire and Thrawn tortures Sabine nearby to draw him out." I did not ultimately wind up using Thrawn, but the spirit of the idea still shines through, I feel.
Warning for a depiction of torture.
Disclaimer: It's me again, still not owning Star Wars. Drat.
Don't Come
Searing sparks flashed across her body and her armor was useless, pain assaulting her senses, rushing through every inch of her twitching form. Sabine writhed under the electric assault, hands twisting in the restraints that bound her to the interrogation slab. A few flat grunts and gasps were all that escaped her.
With a sharp motion the Imperial official had the chair cut off. The electrodes fizzled out, releasing Sabine from their attack, and she slumped forward, shoulders and back hanging off the table.
Sabine panted hard, her eyesight blurring a little as she stared towards the ground. Sleek black boot tips entered her vision and her eyes hardened, flicked up with a hateful glare at the man.
Moff Herizod, small-time governor of the Trans-Hydian region and noted art collector, narrowed his ice blue eyes at her with a cold look.
"Your stubbornness will only prolong your pain, Mandalorian," he said. Stepping forward he grabbed her chin roughly, gloved fingers digging into her jaw. "I'll ask again," he growled, "where did that boy take my starmap?"
Sabine focused her eyes with effort, sending the Imp the nastiest look she could. "It's not—" She coughed harshly, involuntarily. "—your starmap, sleemo," she finished. She shone with defiance as she declared, "It belongs to the Jedi!"
He looked down his nose at her. "The old Jedi Order is dead, my dear," he sniffed. "As you will be if your companion does not return soon."
Behind them, the bustle of the dig site continued. Workers picked and picked at the stone crevasse, silhouetted against the harsh white floodlights, uncovering more and more of the beautiful carved architecture of the old buried temple. But of course the real prize had already been found; Ezra and Sabine had snuck in under cover of darkness and entered the temple to recover the Jedi holocron from a secret inner chamber, a holocron containing a detailed starmap of every Old Republic Jedi outpost spanning the Great Hyperspace Wars to the rise of the Empire.
Unfortunately they had no sooner discovered this priceless treasure than the Empire's forces had stumbled across them, forced them to fight their way back up to the main operating base camp. Sabine had been cut off from Ezra in the confusion, had screamed for him to leave her and go as the troopers surrounded her and grabbed her arms, and after a heartbreaking moment of hesitation, he had closed his eyes in solace and done what she'd ordered, disappearing into the trees that surrounded the dig site, vanishing into the underbrush.
A trooper towards her far left spoke into the speaker for a PA system that surrounded the whole hollow, his filtered voice ringing out loudly across the vale.
"Ezra Bridger, if you can hear this broadcast, we have Sabine Wren," the trooper said, repeating his message for the third or fourth time. "You are ordered to return to Site 24 and immediately surrender yourself and the holocron to ensure her safety."
Sabine let out a huff, adjusting her wrists in the metal restraints. "You're wasting your time," she told the Moff. "He won't fall for that."
Her voice was confident, but her heart wavered. She knew Ezra, knew how painfully he struggled when duty to the cause conflicted with his selfless Jedi protectiveness. Don't come, she begged towards him in her mind. Please just get away and come back for me later. I can handle this. I'll be okay.
She wasn't sure she would be, actually. Herizod had proven... particularly sadistic. The mere fact that he had a set-up, ready-to-go mobile interrogation table was proof enough of that.
Sabine wondered idly if many unwilling workers had been broken into quiet service on this table.
Herizod was sneering up at her, his mouth curdling with a twisted smile. "Ohhh I'm sure he will," he said. "Jedi are empaths are they not? He can sense your pain? Even from a distance?"
Faint beats of fear sounded in Sabine's heart, even as she bravely squared her shoulders.
"Let's make sure he can hear it too," Moff Herizod decided, turning and barking orders at his lackeys.
Microphones were shoved up near her face, wired into the PA system and Sabine did her best to control her frantic breathing, echoes of her breaths already sounding across the distance, loudly broadcasting for all to hear.
She braced herself as the table was turned on again.
-SWR-
Sabine wasn't sure how long she lasted. Every time the electrodes fired up, she heard their sizzling crackles in the loudspeakers and was able to prepare, clench her fists and teeth tighter, curling up as the painful shocks coursed across her chest, desperately, determinedly holding her lips pressed tight, only allowing short grunts to escape.
She couldn't be the reason Ezra was caught. She had to protect him, be strong for him. Even though every nerve ending felt like it was on horrible fire, she kept her screams in, smothering down the pain, the fear, the helplessness, not allowing herself to feel any of it, trying to be numb to it all.
You're not getting him, she thought determinedly towards the blurry form she thought was Moff Herizod. You won't use me against him.
The Imperial watched her impassively as she thrashed and shook, never letting herself cry out, holding back as pain stabbed through her every limb, violent and tumultuous, like a million tiny knives slicing through her.
"Mmgh," Sabine whimpered quietly, as another horrible spasm jerked through her.
On and on it went. Sabine's stubborn Mandalorian pride versus the patient Imperial Moff. She held back and held back, groaning close-mouthed with tight fists and screwed eyes until she felt like a string pulled taut, the pain wearing and wearing on her despite her defiance.
The Moff stirred as he observed her, stepping closer.
"How long do you think you can last?" he asked her, his voice icy and cruel. "Do you really think you can protect your little Jedi boyfriend?" he challenged.
Through the crescendo-ing pain Sabine pried her eyes open, glaring sourly at him.
The electrodes turned on again, burning their pain through her, and Sabine curled tight, holding back a sob as her body was assaulted with agony, sharp and hot, digging into her down to the bones.
Hold on, she told herself.
It was so hard.
She moaned behind her lips, her breath stuttering from the shocks. The biting, stabbing electricity became all she could perceive, tearing apart every inch of her until she wanted so much just to pass out, to let oblivion cover her mind and steal away her thoughts just to have a bit of momentary relief from the fire.
Moff Herizod stepped closer, his voice harsh and threatening.
"Pathetic little girl," he spat. "I have troopers combing the woods. It's only a matter of time before they find him," he said.
Sabine clenched her teeth tighter, biting down so hard it hurt, aching in her jaw.
"I'm going to gut him in front of you," the Imperial threatened. "Right down the middle of his abdomen. Let you watch his blood spill out onto the ground."
A muffled sob crept past her control. Sabine squeezed her eyes closed, praying to whatever gods or Force were listening to be able to hold on, just one moment more.
Herizod seemed to zero in on her weak point, breathlessly promising to hurt Ezra, detailing all the ways he could kill him, going into gruesome detail.
Despair pierced through Sabine's heart. She gripped her fists and jaw against the pain, the elecrodes sparking hotter, more intensely, as the Moff called for more voltage.
Everything dissolved except for the agony. She could barely hear Herizod's voice, shouting in her ear about all the horrible ways he was going to make Ezra suffer for her silence.
"You know, we found this Mandalorian relic once," he told her, the sound of his voice drifting around her head, somehow too loud and too soft at the same time. "Marvelous construction, solid stone and metal. I think it may have been used to restrain Jedi."
Sabine gasped, inhaling sharply, the pang of hot fire stabbing through her heart mingling with the panic shard that pierced her brain. A Vault? It couldn't be. They hadn't been used in forever. Did any of them even still exist?!
Keep it together, keep it together! she told herself desperately.
"As much as I would love to make that little padawan bleed in front of you," she heard the cruel voice saying, "how much worse would it be to kill you while he's in there, completely immobilized and helpless to do anything but watch?"
Her mind provided an image unbidden, Ezra shackled inside the sarcophous-like Vault, watching through the thick glass window as she was mutilated before him.
Her chest hitched. A helpless sound escaped her.
No, she thought. No no no no don't put him in that thing! she begged frantically inside her head. Not Ezra. No! Please don't hurt him!
As the voltage increased again she broke, her head snapping back, screaming, shrieking out her pain for the whole valley to hear.
-SWR-
Ezra tightened himself into a miserable ball, curling up, squeezing his hands harshly around his ears. Sabine's screaming continued over the speakers, loud and unbearable, a horrible sound that stabbed straight through him.
He gasped, whimpering helplessly, as his senses pounded with the echoes of her pain and her sobbing.
His eyes clamped tight. The gilded holocron was in his hand, shimmering and beautiful, singing with the Force in a warm chorus and Ezra let out a choked sound.
He pressed himself harder into the trunk of the tree.
What could he do? He could barely focus with Sabine's agony assaulting him through the Force, beating on his head with horrible clarity. But the holocron... the starmap... those lost Jedi temples waiting to be rediscovered, priceless knowledge and history, his heritage, his birthright as a Jedi... how could he give that up? How could he let it fall into Imperial hands for them to find the outposts and desecrate, and plunder, and spoil? Palpatine had destroyed so much of the Jedi Order already. He deserved a good kick in the teeth from the remnants of the culture he had tried to wipe out.
But that was Sabine down there and she was suffering. He thought frantically as Sabine's distant, sound-system boosted shrieking pounded on his resolve.
Focus. Focus, focus, he had to focus, he had to be clear-headed so he could assess his options.
Ezra took a slow inhale, letting go of his fear, reaching out to the Force and letting his mind meld with it. Calm filtered through him. His jitters stopped, and his hands loosened off his ears. He could still hear Sabine, but now her cries weren't sending him into spiraling panic and filling him with rash impulses.
He glanced towards their shuttle. What did he have to work with?
He spied the thin, enameled wood case that the holocron had been stashed in, cracked open next to him.
He had an idea.
-SWR-
It hurt. It hurt so much. She could barely think through the pain.
Sabine tried to bite back her screaming, tried not to give in, but it was too much. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe, trapped in this agonizing moment, with electric jabs shooting through her and shattering her resolve, turning her into a blubbering, sobbing little girl on the table.
Distantly, she remembered she shouldn't be showing such weakness. She was a Mandalorian, and she was a Rebel to boot, she shouldn't be coming apart like this, thrashing and shrieking until her voice was hoarse, until she couldn't even twitch anymore, so exhausted by the pain that oblivion hovered threateningly on the corners of her mind.
"Stop!" she heard a young male voice cry, in her periphery hearing.
The blur that was Moff Herizod raised his hand, and the electrodes at once powered down, mercifully.
Sabine gasped and sobbed, crying so hard her chest hurt, bleary eyes looking up towards the edge of the work site.
Ezra stood there, pale and brave, the gilded wooden case of the holocron in one hand.
Her vision blurred; she blinked back tears of shame at her failure, her mental voice screaming for Ezra to get out of there, to run, to not do this.
Her breath hitched pitifully as she watched the Moff turn slowly in Ezra's direction. She thought Ezra was shaking a little, as his voice drifted to her.
"I'm... I'm here," he said. "Please let her go," he begged, raising hands in surrender.
A motion from Herizod and troopers were rushing forward, grabbing Ezra's arms and wrestling them behind him, one of the men prying the pretty box from his hand and bringing it over. Sabine bit her lip tightly as they roughhoused him, all her worst fears coming into play.
They pushed him to his knees, holding his wrists firmly, awaiting further instruction from their higher-up. He met eyes with her across the way, warm blue concern beaming to her.
She hung her head, unable to even look at him.
The Moff was appraising his prize gleefully, taking the light wooden box from his lackey with eager carefulness.
"Wise choice, boy," he drawled. "I don't think your Mandalorian friend could have taken much more."
Ezra said nothing, staring with even, calm eyes forward. Moff Herizod turned away from him, running his fingers along the latch of the box.
He cracked it open slowly, a vulture-like excitement in his eyes.
Sabine saw him frown suddenly, confused. She glimpsed an oddly familiar circular device inside the box, heard a strange beeping.
The Moff cursed and flung the box away and the thermal detonator dropped out and rolled towards the heavy equipment.
She knew enough to close her eyes and squeeze tight as the explosion sounded.
The BANG! popped in her ears, almost deafening. Herizod stumbled back in a daze, near senseless, the bright whiteout from the explosion still pluming. The fuel inside an excavator caught a spark and ignited, a secondary explosion blasting them with force. The troopers and workers stumbled from the shock.
Ezra rushed forward, struggling free of the troopers' grip, beelining straight for her and reaching for the metal straps that held her to the table.
Click, click, click, and then she was free, stumbling forward into his shaking arms.
"How...?" she asked in confusion, her mind and ears still spinning from the blast.
"Hid it near the Phantom II," he told her in brief explanation, his eyes wide and worried, gathering her up into his arms like a limp blanket.
Sabine clutched arms around his neck, hanging on tight, trying not to be a burden as he pulled his lightsaber, the green blade a warm hum on her senses, reflecting red bolts that shot at them as he ran towards the edge of the dig site, his other hand under her limp legs. Workers rushed past them to the ruined excavator, frantically trying to suppress the fire before it spread to the other vehicles and Herizod screamed orders, pointing sharply after them, expression twisted with fury. But he and the troopers and the fire became a blur behind them as Ezra ran full-tilt through the trees and up the ridge, gaining distance quickly.
She pressed her face against his neck, tired and sleepy, breathing in the comforting earthen scent of him, as he carried her away.
She drifted in and out, exhausted from the shocks, alerting briefly when he set her down on a cargo seat inside their shuttle and ducked back out, returning momentarily with the precious, beautiful holocron.
He passed it into her hands as he went to take the pilot's seat.
Sabine smiled faintly as she held it, rolling its gilded edges in her palms. The shuttle roared to life and Ezra didn't even wait for them to clear the trees before launching them forward, somehow managing to avoid the trunks and tree branches with such dizzying precision she thought it must have been Force-assisted.
A stray bolt managed to ping them, and they jostled, but then the night sky smoothed into the void of space and they were in orbit, the planet behind them rapidly falling away.
Sabine's eyes and head drooped, she startled a bit at the jolt to hyperspace, and then she was blinking drowsily again, her lap blurring.
She heard Ezra give an exhale from the cockpit.
His clothes and gear rustled as he stood, and Sabine pulled her face up to smile at him as he came over to her.
His eyes studied her in concern. She knew she probably looked a mess; she could smell her singed paint and hair and flesh. There would be burns for a while. That was okay.
Ezra reached out, softly brushing her bangs from her cheek. Sabine hummed at the gesture, closing her eyes contently.
"You okay?" he asked, quietly.
She groaned. "Ask me again in about a week," she said.
Ezra said nothing, choosing instead to turn and ease himself down into the seat next to her. His arm wrapped around her shoulders.
She leaned into him, setting her temple against his, taking comfort in his presence.
"I'll be all right," she told him.
He nodded, just letting her rest.
Sabine drifted off to the gentle thrum of the shuttle and the soft breathing of the boy next to her.
(A/N)- Oh dear I made it Soft. (But I mean the kids deserve it, you know?)
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